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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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F. M. THOMPSON, 
CUS^-JflKLD, MASS. 



ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVER- 
SARY OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE 
TOWN OF GREENFIELD, 
MASSACHUSETTS. 

June 9, 1903. 

Letter from HON. JOHN E. RUSSELL. 



It is difficult to write a letter for this anniversary without 
some reference to the history of the region, though I will try 
not to entrench upon ground that belongs to the orator of the 
day. My grandfather Russell was born in Deerfield and his 
Sheldon forebears had been participants in all the life of the 
old town in whose records are the stirring and romantic events 
of local history. 

Greenfield makes little show on historic pages, though its 
territory forms part of the shadowy frontier for which so much 
blood was shed in King Philip's war, and in the wars between 
the English and French. 

Turner, Holyoke, Moseley and other leaders were half for- 
gotten names, " the black and fatal day " when the blood of 
" the flower of Essex " incarnadined the brook, was a dim 
memory, and the generation that survived the awful winter 
night of 1704 was in the grave, when Greenfield was "set 
off" ; an event much easier of accomplishment, I imagine, 
than the separation of Cheapside from the mother town nearly 
a century and a half later. 

There is little of romance in what is near, authentic and 
practical. Happy is the man, the family and the town, that 

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has had an uneventful history. There is no scope for imagi- 
nation and tradition in prosperous annals. 

When Greenfield began the Indian had appealed his claim 
to a higher court, the heavy work of settlement had been ac- 
complished and the people of the colonies, under the salutary 
neglect of a distant government, were enjoying freedom from 
feudal forms and restraints with the unbounded resources of 
a continent unwasted by hungry generations. 

It was an auspicious hour, and from then until now, with 
but little 'check, except during the years of the Revolution, 
■Greenfield has been a thriving community, the center of an 
agricultural population, its steady source of business, never 
highly elated nor unduly depressed. 

Climate and soil have much to do with the character of 
every community, and while our meadows and hills had no 
profusion of crops, and no mines of valuable minerals, they 
sustained a frugal and industrious people in comfort. 

The town had its share of the advantages that drew the ear- 
liest settlers of the valley from the seacoast to the permanent 
meadows made by " the great river," in its annual overflow, 
when it " set back " in the spring floods. 

There was no primeval forest to be removed from those 
fertile banks, they were ready for the plough and rewarded 
the husbandmen with joyful harvests. The river, and its af- 
fluents, were alive with salmon and shad in their season ; they 
came like the birds, companions of the spring ; the fertile soil 
of the hills was covered with a strong growth of oak, sugar 
maple, beech and chestnut. It was a bountiful and beautiful 
region. He who has stood on rocky mountain, looking to 
the East and beheld the "June rise" come down from the 
melting snows of the North with 

" Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood 
All dressed in living green," 

will confess, not only the loveliness, but the majesty of the 
scene. 



Ji.Ou.'^lojiq'. 



Travelling in distant parts of the world, in " storied realms 
ot morning land," or on rivers famous in history, my thoughts 
have fondly returned to the scenes of earlv life and I have 
felt that those renowned shores had not the beauty of my na- 
tive valley and that, as her enthusiastic poet sang, 

" No watery glades through richer valleys shine, 
Nor drinks the sea a lovelier wave than thine." 

The great river had a value to our ancestors that we cannot 
estimate, in the fact that it was a waterway to the sea, the 
path by which the world was open to their enterprise. I 
have seen vessels moored at Cheapside of greater tonnage than 
those in which the star-gazing Genoese sailed from Spain to 
the discovery of the New World. I have watched the slow 
unloading of clanging bars of iron, of bundles of cutler's steel, 
water-borne from Liverpool to the head of navigation on the 
Deerfield, — vast piles of salt and odorous puncheons of rum, 
molasses and sugar, telling of tropical islands, waving fronded 
palms in Southern seas. 

In the incorporation of Greenfield the new town was en- 
titled to the North bank of the Deerfield river, but the old 
town jealously kept possession of both banks, a source of con- 
tention and heart burning for many years. In my boyhood 
the port was under the grim wardenship of Ira Abercrombie : 
he was Surveyor and Lord High Admiral of the fleet. His 
yellow warehouse was the receptacle for the riches of the seas. 
This allusion to river navigation may seem facetious to those 
accustomed all their lives to the convenience and domination 
of railways. It would seem impossible to do business on 
streams that, as John Randolph said of the Ohio, are frozen 
half the year and dry the other half; but for the greater part 
of a century our fathers found water enough, and the valley 
towns were supplied with goods, and marketed much of their 
produce by the river. After the Montague canal was con- 
structed, with capital borrowed in Amsterdam, boats ascended 



as far as Bellows Falls, when there was what was called " a 
good pitch of water." 

With inexpensive engineering at difficult parts of the river, 
between Hartford and the mouth of the Deerfield, and stern- 
wheel steamboats to tow the barges on the " reaches," quite 
rapid work was done. The boats used wind as much as pos- 
sible, — having a large main and top sail, very effective when 
the wind was in the South on the upward trip, or in the North 
on the way down ; but when the winds were adverse the nu- 
merous crew worked up stream with " set poles ; " this was 
called "a white ash breeze," and was severe and exhausting 
labor. 

Allen, Root & Co. in later years, controlled the freighting 
of all this part of the river. They had a steamboat that ran 
from the head of the South Hadley canal to Montague, tow- 
ing the loaded boats ; the boat for Greenfield left the tow line 
at Deerfield river and made Cheapside with the white ash 
breeze. 

Those who hear this story of the past will readily believe 
that our rivers had a deeper and more equal flow of water in 
those days. When the Green River Works were built, nearly 
seventy years ago, the stream was larger than it is now, with 
a steady water power all summer. The rainfall has not less- 
ened, but the heavy forests have been destroyed ; these held 
the precipitation, and long delayed the melting snows, which 
now run from the denuded hillsides, washing the soil into the 
valley and making sudden freshets ; the unshaded springs 
dry early, and the river beds show narrow channels and reaches 
of sand. 

It is to be deplored that our grandfathers did not borrow 
more Dutch money, or tax themselves and bond posterity, to 
deepen the channel of the Connecticut and make canals about 
its falls, at a time when there was no powerful influence to 
prevent such improvements. 

Whoever sees the enormous traffic on the rivers of Ger- 



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many, like the Elbe, becomes aware of the great economy in 
the use of natural waterways, when their channels are deepened 
and the flow regulated by jetties. 

When Greenfield patiently looked for the arrival of boats 
for its supply of heavy goods the world was not in a hurry. 
Except on a few main lines of travel the country was work- 
ing and dreaming, much as it had always done. The last 
century was well advanced when railways began to change the 
relations of communities, but the movement was rapid and soon 
the isolated town with its varied industries was but a memory. 
Steam has made us citizens of every state and participants in 
the general bounty of nature. 

Greenfield has had a fair share in the prosaic and noisy 
" prosperity " of recent years, but it was a sweet and restful 
place in its youth. A former inhabitant, if called to life, would 
think the present town a realm of enchantment, with roads 
cut through the bowels of the earth, and miraculous means of 
locomotion; he would start with surprise to see light and water 
springing into sight at turning a handle or touching a button. 
Perhaps, when his wonder subsided, he would miss something 
of peace and quietness. The changes are material, physical 
and mechanical ; what seemed impossible has become common- 
place ; men and women are unchanged. 

While Greenfield has kept pace with the country it has 
happily never had the intoxication, and consequent reaction 
of a "boom." Hard times have always touched it lightly. 
Its important industries have had no experience of failure and 
reorganization. It has been fortunate in its citizens and in 
its families. Its remoteness from larger towns has been to 
its advantage and tended to the development of self-depend- 
ence. I regret that circumstances prevent me from ending 
my days where they so fortunately began. 

In my long absences from the valley of the Connecticut I 
have ever had the feeling of an exile. The scenes of child- 
hood have our first and last affection : 



" Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn brown 
Than fairest summits which the cedars crown, 
Sweeter the fragrance of thy summer breeze 
Than all Arabia breathes along the seas ! 
O happiest they whose early love unchanged, 
Hopes undissolved, and friendships unestranged, 
Tired of their wanderings, still can ever see 
Love, hopes, and friendships, centering all in thee." 



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